with them for several days, I gained their friendship by telling to them
one of my stories, after which I was always welcome among them. Still
I could come no nearer to the Prince, and as my store of money was
beginning to run low, I bethought me that I would return to Memphis.

One day, however, a long-bearded old man, with a gold-tipped wand of
office, who had a bull's head embroidered on his robe, stopped in front
of me and, calling me a white-headed crow, asked me what I was doing
hopping day by day about the chambers of the palace. I told him my name
and business and he told me his, which it seemed was Pambasa, one of
the Prince's chamberlains. When I asked him to take me to the Prince,
he laughed in my face and said darkly that the road to his Highness's
presence was paved with gold. I understood what he meant and gave him a
gift which he took as readily as a cock picks corn, saying that he would
speak of me to his master and that I must come back again.

I came thrice and each time that old cock picked more corn. At last I
grew enraged and, forgetting where I was, began to shout at him and
call him a thief, so that folks gathered round to listen. This seemed
to frighten him. At first he looked towards the door as though to summon
the guard to thrust me out; then changed his mind, and in a grumbling
voice bade me follow him. We went down long passages, past soldiers who
stood at watch in them still as mummies in their coffins, till at length
we came to some broidered curtains. Here Pambasa whispered to me to
wait, and passed through the curtains which he left not quite closed, so
that I could see the room beyond and hear all that took place there.

It was a small room like to that of any scribe, for on the tables were
palettes, pens of reed, ink in alabaster vases, and sheets of papyrus
pinned upon boards. The walls were painted, not as I was wont to paint